Colombia minister resigns as paramilitary scandal grows

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia minister resigns as paramilitary scandal grows
POSTED: 1641 GMT (0041 HKT), February 19, 2007

Story Highlights• First member of President Alvaro Uribe's Cabinet falls in paramilitary scandal
• Foreign minister resigns after concerns about family's ties to paramilitaries
• These banned militias are responsible for some of Colombia's worst massacres
• About 60 politicians face questioning from Colombia's high court in scandal

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Colombia's foreign minister resigned Monday as an ever-growing scandal linking the political establishment and far-right paramilitaries claimed its first member of President Alvaro Uribe's Cabinet.

Maria Consuelo Araujo announced her resignation four days after her brother, a senator, was jailed on charges of colluding with the paramilitaries and the kidnapping of a potential political rival.

The Supreme Court also recommended that federal prosecutors investigate Araujo's father, a former provincial governor, federal lawmaker and agriculture minister, in the kidnapping case.

"I clearly see the need for the judicial process to be free of interference, and my certainty in the innocence of my father and my brother obliges me to have the freedom to stand by them and support them," Araujo said in her resignation statement, which she read aloud in a brief news conference
(snip/...)

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/02/19/colombia.paramilitary.ap/

[IndianaGreen]

1. And we just pumped more money into Plan Colombia

Plan Colombia is a legacy of the Clinton Administration, like DOMA, SOA, and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Junior Bush takes a bad idea like Plan Colombia and takes it to its idiotic conclusion.

[Judi Lynn]

3. And what a legacy. It was enough to get Paul Wellstone's attention,

and a couple of warnings to him when he went to Colombia to look more closely, what with the bomb they found planted at the very location where he would be getting out of his car on a stop at Barrancabermeja, and the matter of the police accidently drenching him in glycophosphate when he was brought to a site to watch them spray coca plants in 2000.

There's not much there to be proud of, after all. You have to wonder if he'd do it again. You'd think a man that allegedly bright would have been able to see the problems with "Plan Colombia," after all.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Critics say Colombia's president manipulating statistics to make country appear safer

Critics say Colombia's president manipulating statistics to make country appear safer
By Darcy Crowe
ASSOCIATED PRESS

6:36 p.m. February 17, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia – Critics say President Alvaro Uribe's government is manipulating statistics to make Colombia appear safer, casting doubt on achievements that have made him popular both at home and with the U.S. government.

One of the leading critics is Cesar Caballero, who said he quit as director of the federal statistics office in 2004 because Uribe's office told him not to release a study that found sharply higher homicide rates in major Colombian cities.

“The president's policy is that you have to maintain the perception that security has improved, no matter what the case,” Caballero said.

Jose Obdulio Gaviria, a close Uribe adviser, said the study was not published because the government wanted to review it first. But Caballero insisted the decision was political.
(snip/...)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070217-1836-colombia-numbersgame.html

[bobthedrummer]

4. As a sidebar to all this I hear Noriega is due to be released, maybe this year. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

5. And he doesn't have a lot to look forward to, does he?

I'll bet THIS will have been the last time he acted as a stooge for the U.S. right-wing!

~snip~

50s-60s Spy for US, informing on colleagues in his socialist party, and on leftist students at his Peruvian military academy. ? New York Times, 9/28/88

1967 Finishes courses at SOA including Infantry Officer, Combat Intelligence Officer, Military Intelligence (Counter-Intelligence Officer Course), and Jungle Operations. An instructor calls him "outstanding." ? John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, 1991

1971 US has "hard evidence" of his heavy involvement in drug trafficking, "sufficient for indictment". Nixon sets in motion initial plans for his assassination. ? Frontline (PBS), 1/30/90

1970-76 Meanwhile, Noriega is in the pay of the CIA and the Pentagon, reportedly receiving more than $100,000 per year. ? Newsweek, 1/15/90

1976 CIA Director George Bush gives him a VIP tour of CIA headquarters in Washington; he resides with Bush's Deputy Director. ? Dinges

1977 Carter officials reportedly remove him from the US payroll. ? New York Times, 10/2/88

1979 Gives haven to the overthrown Shah of Iran, brutal US-installed dictator.

1981 Becomes part of a ruling military junta after 13-year dictator and SOA graduate General Omar Torrijos dies in a plane crash, later blamed on Noriega and the CIA by other junta members.

Reagan/Bush officials put him back on the US payroll, again reportedly at more than $100,000 per year. ? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/11/87

1981-83 Extensive drug trafficking and money laundering involving the Medellin, Colombia cocaine cartel. ? Dinges

8/83 Seizes command of the National Guard (to be renamed "Panama Defense Forces"). He is the effective chief of state.

11/83 Washington visits with White House, State Department and Pentagon, including CIA Director William Casey. ? Newsweek, 1/15/90

1983-86 The US loves him for: spying on Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega; allowing the United States to set up listening posts in Panama, with which they monitor sensitive communications in all of Central America and beyond; aiding the American warfare against the rebels in El Salvador and the government of Nicaragua (facilitating the flow of money and arms to the contras, allowing the US to base spy planes in Panama in clear violation of the canal treaties, giving the US permission to train contras in Panama, and spying in support of American sabotage inside of Nicaragua). ? Newsweek, 1/15/90
(snip/...)

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/poli/soa/panama.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His return date is September 9th, according to this article:

Noriega set for prison release in September
Now 70, former Panama leader plans to fight murder charges back home

Updated: 9:29 a.m. CT Jan 24, 2007

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16787314/